xref: /freebsd/lib/libc/db/man/btree.3 (revision 4f8f43b06ed07e96a250855488cc531799d5b78f)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993
2.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
6.\" are met:
7.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11.\"    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
13.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
14.\"    without specific prior written permission.
15.\"
16.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
17.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
18.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
19.\" ARE DISCLAIMED.  IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
20.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
21.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
22.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
23.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
24.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
25.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
26.\" SUCH DAMAGE.
27.\"
28.\"	@(#)btree.3	8.4 (Berkeley) 8/18/94
29.\"
30.Dd August 18, 1994
31.Dt BTREE 3
32.Os
33.Sh NAME
34.Nm btree
35.Nd "btree database access method"
36.Sh SYNOPSIS
37.In sys/types.h
38.In db.h
39.Sh DESCRIPTION
40The routine
41.Fn dbopen
42is the library interface to database files.
43One of the supported file formats is
44.Nm
45files.
46The general description of the database access methods is in
47.Xr dbopen 3 ,
48this manual page describes only the
49.Nm
50specific information.
51.Pp
52The
53.Nm
54data structure is a sorted, balanced tree structure storing
55associated key/data pairs.
56.Pp
57The
58.Nm
59access method specific data structure provided to
60.Fn dbopen
61is defined in the
62.In db.h
63include file as follows:
64.Bd -literal
65typedef struct {
66	u_long flags;
67	u_int cachesize;
68	int maxkeypage;
69	int minkeypage;
70	u_int psize;
71	int (*compare)(const DBT *key1, const DBT *key2);
72	size_t (*prefix)(const DBT *key1, const DBT *key2);
73	int lorder;
74} BTREEINFO;
75.Ed
76.Pp
77The elements of this structure are as follows:
78.Bl -tag -width indent
79.It Va flags
80The flag value is specified by
81.Em or Ns 'ing
82any of the following values:
83.Bl -tag -width indent
84.It Dv R_DUP
85Permit duplicate keys in the tree, i.e., permit insertion if the key to be
86inserted already exists in the tree.
87The default behavior, as described in
88.Xr dbopen 3 ,
89is to overwrite a matching key when inserting a new key or to fail if
90the
91.Dv R_NOOVERWRITE
92flag is specified.
93The
94.Dv R_DUP
95flag is overridden by the
96.Dv R_NOOVERWRITE
97flag, and if the
98.Dv R_NOOVERWRITE
99flag is specified, attempts to insert duplicate keys into
100the tree will fail.
101.Pp
102If the database contains duplicate keys, the order of retrieval of
103key/data pairs is undefined if the
104.Va get
105routine is used, however,
106.Va seq
107routine calls with the
108.Dv R_CURSOR
109flag set will always return the logical
110.Dq first
111of any group of duplicate keys.
112.El
113.It Va cachesize
114A suggested maximum size (in bytes) of the memory cache.
115This value is
116.Em only
117advisory, and the access method will allocate more memory rather than fail.
118Since every search examines the root page of the tree, caching the most
119recently used pages substantially improves access time.
120In addition, physical writes are delayed as long as possible, so a moderate
121cache can reduce the number of I/O operations significantly.
122Obviously, using a cache increases (but only increases) the likelihood of
123corruption or lost data if the system crashes while a tree is being modified.
124If
125.Va cachesize
126is 0 (no size is specified) a default cache is used.
127.It Va maxkeypage
128The maximum number of keys which will be stored on any single page.
129Not currently implemented.
130.\" The maximum number of keys which will be stored on any single page.
131.\" Because of the way the
132.\" .Nm
133.\" data structure works,
134.\" .Va maxkeypage
135.\" must always be greater than or equal to 2.
136.\" If
137.\" .Va maxkeypage
138.\" is 0 (no maximum number of keys is specified) the page fill factor is
139.\" made as large as possible (which is almost invariably what is wanted).
140.It Va minkeypage
141The minimum number of keys which will be stored on any single page.
142This value is used to determine which keys will be stored on overflow
143pages, i.e., if a key or data item is longer than the pagesize divided
144by the minkeypage value, it will be stored on overflow pages instead
145of in the page itself.
146If
147.Va minkeypage
148is 0 (no minimum number of keys is specified) a value of 2 is used.
149.It Va psize
150Page size is the size (in bytes) of the pages used for nodes in the tree.
151The minimum page size is 512 bytes and the maximum page size is 64K.
152If
153.Va psize
154is 0 (no page size is specified) a page size is chosen based on the
155underlying file system I/O block size.
156.It Va compare
157Compare is the key comparison function.
158It must return an integer less than, equal to, or greater than zero if the
159first key argument is considered to be respectively less than, equal to,
160or greater than the second key argument.
161The same comparison function must be used on a given tree every time it
162is opened.
163If
164.Va compare
165is
166.Dv NULL
167(no comparison function is specified), the keys are compared
168lexically, with shorter keys considered less than longer keys.
169.It Va prefix
170The
171.Va prefix
172element
173is the prefix comparison function.
174If specified, this routine must return the number of bytes of the second key
175argument which are necessary to determine that it is greater than the first
176key argument.
177If the keys are equal, the key length should be returned.
178Note, the usefulness of this routine is very data dependent, but, in some
179data sets can produce significantly reduced tree sizes and search times.
180If
181.Va prefix
182is
183.Dv NULL
184(no prefix function is specified),
185.Em and
186no comparison function is specified, a default lexical comparison routine
187is used.
188If
189.Va prefix
190is
191.Dv NULL
192and a comparison routine is specified, no prefix comparison is
193done.
194.It Va lorder
195The byte order for integers in the stored database metadata.
196The number should represent the order as an integer; for example,
197big endian order would be the number 4,321.
198If
199.Va lorder
200is 0 (no order is specified) the current host order is used.
201.El
202.Pp
203If the file already exists (and the
204.Dv O_TRUNC
205flag is not specified), the
206values specified for the
207.Va flags , lorder
208and
209.Va psize
210arguments
211are ignored
212in favor of the values used when the tree was created.
213.Pp
214Forward sequential scans of a tree are from the least key to the greatest.
215.Pp
216Space freed up by deleting key/data pairs from the tree is never reclaimed,
217although it is normally made available for reuse.
218This means that the
219.Nm
220storage structure is grow-only.
221The only solutions are to avoid excessive deletions, or to create a fresh
222tree periodically from a scan of an existing one.
223.Pp
224Searches, insertions, and deletions in a
225.Nm
226will all complete in
227O lg base N where base is the average fill factor.
228Often, inserting ordered data into
229.Nm Ns s
230results in a low fill factor.
231This implementation has been modified to make ordered insertion the best
232case, resulting in a much better than normal page fill factor.
233.Sh ERRORS
234The
235.Nm
236access method routines may fail and set
237.Va errno
238for any of the errors specified for the library routine
239.Xr dbopen 3 .
240.Sh SEE ALSO
241.Xr dbopen 3 ,
242.Xr hash 3 ,
243.Xr mpool 3 ,
244.Xr recno 3
245.Rs
246.%T "The Ubiquitous B-tree"
247.%A Douglas Comer
248.%J "ACM Comput. Surv. 11"
249.%N 2
250.%D June 1979
251.%P 121-138
252.Re
253.Rs
254.%A Bayer
255.%A Unterauer
256.%T "Prefix B-trees"
257.%J "ACM Transactions on Database Systems"
258.%N 1
259.%V Vol. 2
260.%D March 1977
261.%P 11-26
262.Re
263.Rs
264.%B "The Art of Computer Programming Vol. 3: Sorting and Searching"
265.%A D. E. Knuth
266.%D 1968
267.%P 471-480
268.Re
269.Sh BUGS
270Only big and little endian byte order is supported.
271